Carmen Cheung

Biography

Carmen Cheung is a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Justice and Accountability. 

Carmen’s research and practice focus on security and human rights, and state responses to threats to public safety and security. She has acted as counsel in public interest cases in the U.S. and Canada, including litigation over the use of torture and extraordinary rendition by the U.S. government, and an inquiry into the transfer of Afghan detainees by Canadian Forces to risk of torture. Carmen has made submissions at all levels of federal court in the U.S., including the Supreme Court of the United States, and has also appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada. In addition, she has testified on matters relating to security, anti-terrorism and human rights before committees of the Canadian Parliament and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Until January 2018, Carmen was a Professor of Global Practice at the Munk School and the Executive Director of the Global Justice Lab. Prior to joining the Munk School, she served as Senior Counsel at the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), where she litigated cases relating to civil liberties and human rights, and engaged in research and advocacy on national security law and policy. In 2013–2014, she took a leave from the BCCLA to serve as Acting Director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she taught international human rights advocacy and the law of armed conflict.

Carmen began her legal practice as a litigation associate with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York, where she worked on civil, criminal and regulatory matters. She received her JD from Columbia University and graduated with an AB in Social Studies from Harvard University.